So the other evening my son and I are watching TV and a commercial for the upcoming XBox 360 game Gears of War comes on. We’re both sitting their glued to TV awed by the games graphics but what really struck us was the song that was playing during the whole commercial. I went nuts trying to find out what the song was. It’s called Mad World and was originally done by Tears for Fears. This version of the song is from the movie Donnie Darko. The video is a bit graphic so fair warning.
Verse 1
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, Worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, Going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, No expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrows
No tomorrow, No tomorrow
Chorus
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
These dreams in which i’m dying, Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles its a very very
Mad World, Mad World
Verse 2
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And they feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, Sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, No one knew me
Hello teacher tell me whats my lesson
Look right through me, Look right through me
Chorus
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which i’m dying, Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it’s a very very
Mad World, Mad World
Enlargen your world
Mad World
Verse 1
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, Worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, Going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, No expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrows
No tomorrow, No tomorrow
Chorus
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
These dreams in which i’m dying, Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles its a very very
Mad World, Mad World
Verse 2
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And they feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, Sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, No one knew me
Hello teacher tell me whats my lesson
Look right through me, Look right through me
Chorus
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which i’m dying, Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it’s a very very
Mad World, Mad World
Enlargen your world
Mad World
Verse 1
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, Worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, Going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, No expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrows
No tomorrow, No tomorrow
Chorus
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
These dreams in which i’m dying, Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles its a very very
Mad World, Mad World
Verse 2
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And they feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, Sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, No one knew me
Hello teacher tell me whats my lesson
Look right through me, Look right through me
Chorus
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which i’m dying, Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it’s a very very
Mad World, Mad World
Enlargen your world
Mad World
I just have to say thank-you. I’ve been going crazy over this myself and now I finally know the name of the song. This commercial will definately stick with me.
It\’s certainly one of those songs that\’ll leave you incessantly humming the tune – or in my case until my dear wife tells me to cut it out!
la rola esta genial, la escuche en un comercial para un juego de una consola y me perecio la neta
Marko from Puebla De Zaragoza, Mexico left the above comment buy I’m afraid I don’t speak Spanish and my Peruvian translator couldn’t quite figure out what “perecio” means – although he thinks it’s closing to meaning “neat”
Here is what Babel Fish did with what you posted:
the rola this brilliant one, listens to it in commercial for a game of a console and me perecio the net one
Well it’s still pretty much Babel to this poor monolingual fool, but I get the idea that you think the commercial for this game is neat.
Thanks for leaving a comment, I do take the time to read all of them.
Peace,
Rong
WOW, I as well have to thank you. Incredible song, it flows so graciously. Fell in love with that song cause it stiks to your head. Great song though.
Oh, and by the way, by “perecio” he meant “appeared”, he just mispelled the word. The proper way to spell it in spanish is “parecio” which means “appeared”. He is basically saying that the the song(have no clue what rola means) is GENIUS and that he heard it on a commercial for a game console and it appeared “neta”(never heard of the word). Guess me being trilingual helps you out a little. Again, thanks for posting this. And if you ever have any good songs like this, PLEASE I beg of you to let me know, I would GREATLY appreciate it! My email is r_alcoba_8@hotmail.com. That’s my email, not my personal one though. I would be more than gladly to my personal once you email me in this email. Take care bro.
this is game looks amazing i love the version u got i was looking for the best one this is it thanks
Right on! I thought it was Edward Kowalczyk, the lead singer for Live singing this version – thanks for clarifying.
Xbox nailed it.
thanks a lot for this article, i too have been trying to find out what this song is. for those of you who also need help finding a song, try putting all the words you can remember in parentheses and googling it. you’ll probably come up with the lyrics for it somewhere, or a gem of an article such as this one.
I have been a Tears for Fears fan from way, way back. I remember first listening to “Mad World” and all of the other cuts from their first album, “The Hurting” back in the early ’80′s on a youth group bus trip… and being mesmerized by the melodies. Very telling lyrics their… it is indeed a mad world.
I love this song, however it does kinda depress me. Thanks for posting it.
Funny that the most obscure posts are the ones that get the most hits. Ah well, I’ll take what I can get.
Thank you! I searched in google for some of the keywords, mad+world+funny+sad, or something like that, and I found your site. Now I have downloaded three versions of the song.
Btw, I’m not from Mexico like that other guy, I’m from Norway
The song is actually a remake of the Tears for Fears song “Mad World” done by Gary Jules. The remake was originally used in the movie “Donnie Darko” as the theme.
simply brilliant, just got the game today and its rediculously good, I definitly recomend it. And this song fits perfect with the commercial, way to go microsoft.
Yep, I saw that Xbox commercial and just stoped what I was doing and watched it… then marked it on my Tivo.. wrote down the words and searched… I am lucky I found this thread! Thanks! Now I have to go out and buy this song..
Thanks for the info, I was looking for the same thing.
I tried to find the original and found out Tears for fears wrote the original song. This version is Gary Jules. You can find the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1MlvVc4
The sad thing is I’ve gone to a number of online music sites trying to buy an MP3 of this song and they only want to sell you the complete album. Given the obscurity of this song before this recent commercial one begins to wonder if there is a conspiracy afoot.
i saw the exact same thing, litterally the same ad, well thanX, o and Gears of War is the best game in history to this day
thank you times a million
THANK YOU so much i was killing myself trying to figure out what that song was. now i can start doing my hw again…but not really
I like it.
So sad ! I love it . . . Just had to find out what song it was. As so many else. This song is damn good !
Thanks so much for figuring this freaking song out! It was seriously about to drive me crazy. I’m actually gonna go download it now.
Excellent, trailer + song gives me shivers… I love it